


As a Dream

by ironheart



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 10:34:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11439051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironheart/pseuds/ironheart
Summary: “As you said, it has been so far away since we saw each other last time that we might well forget how both of us look like...I have no intention to see through the silence upon us as we keep going on an unknown journey to an undetermined destination...If what we dream about is able to stop the flash of time...Then let it be, as a dream.”——From Anny





	As a Dream

**Author's Note:**

> I've loved this pair since I finshed Inception and spent lots of time writting a story of the boys. This pair is not as popular as others, doesn't matter. I just write it because I like it and I want to express that there is more image and messege beyond what we've seen from the movie and from others' work.  
> I stopped writting for some time so it took almost two yours for me to finish this journey. I wrote it from my last year in high school and finished it in my freshman year at college.  
> I wrote the story in Chinese and I plan to post the Chinese version of Chapter 1 first to store it on line, then translate it into English if there is anybody interested in reading it.

I believed myself to be highly self-regulated and strongly determined but I had experienced the danger of drowning in the limbo in the adventure with Cobb.

 

Anny’s words on her latest letter came to my mind.  
...As we keep going on an unknown journey to an undetermined destination...

Once I stepped outside of plane, I felt the sun burning over my head, drying my eyes like crazy. It was warm and powerful. I frowned, staring at a shade of green next to the lane. 

Waking up from a deep sleep that clutched my bones, I was in the most mindless trance ever that I almost lost the track of feeling what is real and what is not under my hands——the truth is, I am not a professional or qualified dream maker cause a bullet had nearly sabotaged all my team members. 

The other five in my team looked at me almost at the same time when I came to the luggage track, eyeing me that it was finally over. The airport personnel guided the passengers out of the plane into the main hall. All of a sudden, every brick of noise and every shred of colorfulness of human being swarmed into my consciousness.  
It was the time that I knew I was on my way back. I had called my assistant when the plane landed and had told her I had been fine, not forgetting to give the instruction that Cobb’s fake passport must be delivered to the airport as promised.  
Cobb had been expecting it for a long time, to go home. The inception, the love of passion and the love for his family had cost him everything. The hatred and shame he had because of his wife and the bound between the kids and him had encouraged him to join my team. My goal was to create the dream, to plant the designated idea for the purpose of destroying my competitors.  
I, again, had got to learn the magic of dream and planting an idea——a piece of thought, as small as a sesame could lead to a catastrophe. Cobb still had his secrets which I didn’t want to know anymore, if any of them concerned his wife’s death.  
I had one for myself too, of course. I decided that I should have my own team of dream makers who must be the best from all over the world. This plan was a backup, in case any of my rivals got the idea of coming at me again. I had to kill that idea. If possible, I wanted to try creating a dream and plant an idea in someone’s head by myself. 

After getting some rest on the plane, I was on another plan to the headquarter in Japan and I faintehed on the way.

This operation got me good. I lied on the bed for several weeks.  
“I am sorry but...I had the idea that you are not coming back this time.” My assistant said, the eyes were concerned, making me smile.

Long hours of sitting behind the desk had been killing me for months after I had been back from the journey as if my nerves had become vulnerable. Later I took my assistant’s advice to take light duties of less nerve consuming jobs, project assessments leaving the rest of it to the others.  
I had to thank my associates because when I came back, there is not too much of work left for me and I saved lots of time studying everything about planting thoughts. I contact Cobb far away across the Ocean, asking for his advice. He emailed back, saying he had sent a professional to offer some help and he hoped that I would be satisfied enough not to cause any economic crises.  
We had this agreement under the circumstance that we had a “history” thus we hadn’t talk about money. I had just promised that if it was reasonable, the professional could get what they wanted, including some immunity. Cobb told me to wait in the office after five in the afternoon so I took an early flight to the NY office.  
“Nice seeing you again, Mr. Saito.”  
It was the Fogger, Cobb’s so-called professional. If I remembered it right, he was called “Eames”, who was good at misguiding and played a sexy blonde that had had me confused in the field.  
He was too confident for his own good, standing in front of me. But there’s something about his smile, tricky and absurd, making the air tinkling. He definitely took time, taking easy on his own. There are bristles on her lower cheek but looking younger than I remembered.  
As far as I knew he was a freelancer, wandering around, took every job that he could extort money from, even though it was dangers which was exactly what had brought us together in the field. But it might be the first time that he flew all the way to another place, not for money.

Then what was it so fascinating that he was willing to give up money?  
“Mr. Eames.”  
“Yeah.”  
He answered, as if genuinely amused by the fact that I still remembered his name. He blew a whistle by moving his lips, playing naughty but not making any sound.  
“Right, I don’t really know that you are actually one of the dream makers. I just figured that you were there to... uh, like the ‘suit case’ in the filed... as just a piece of additional luggage.”  
“That luggage must be very important, sir.”  
He cleared his throat, hearing my identifiable satire, seeming to demonstrate that he was really professional, misguiding tightening his loosen tie a little bit. And he put down a tiny suit case on my desk and cleared out all the unnecessariness.  
He picked up the photo on my desk as soon as I took it back intermediately before he could actually see it. His hand was still in the middle of holding something, and he looked at me.  
“OK, rich people have more secrets than we do.”  
“Just do you job.”  
I suggested that it was not a good idea to challenge my tolerance and I didn’t want to play the game of “why you are here” with Eames.  
“You may begin.”  
He took several pieces of paper out of the case. I took a glance, seeing some sky-scrappers I had never seen.  
I took my head down, trying to help him take out the paper left inside the case until I felt his breath on my neck. It was pricking, as though my body began to shiver. It was moment of off-guard and I chose to sit back to my chair to wait for him to finish rest of his moves.  
I was seeing architectures of different styles some of which I could recognize since I had learned a lot from the architecture lesson before I graduated from college. It was a work of amateur, judging from the rough texture and unbalanced black traces. They were done by the Fogger.  
“What do you think?”  
He showed them to me like a child who just began to learn how to draw, as if it was now or never, he had to get my attention. But I tended to tell the truth, in a gentle way if I tried.  
“Not bad, but not that good.”  
“Oh,” he said,”I didn’t think of you as an expert of this thing.”  
A sense of disappointment flickered across his face, then suddenly disappeared but what he said was practically satirical. I pasted on a smile while he pursed his lips, murmuring something. He continued to sooth the paper of sketching on the surface. They were higher in quantity than in quality, spreading out on the desk in a few seconds.  
“We know, Mr. Saito, that as a inceptor intending to steal critical information in a person’s head, once they have a partner in the field, they don’t have to tell all the details to each other. Last time in the field, Cobb taught me that it was ‘say this, do another’ principle. That is what I am going to teach you today.”  
I searched in the sketches in front of me, trying to find those that fit for a beginner.  
Eventually, I cannot help but said, “Of course I know the story. Once we stick to the rules, the mission is most likely to fail even though there was indeed, a tiny little imperfection in the outcome.”  
“That is why you can have the most luxurious office in the area right?” 

He looked around, spreading his arms, circling and tumbling in the space before my desk. The sun sprayed into the office through the French windows on the side, allowing me to inspect his lousy dance from far to near, and to my desk.  
“Ah...I am sorry but I will be trying to make sure that in the first place, you have a strong belief and the precise recognition of the actual world.”  
“You mean, if I have the ability to distinguish from reality and illusion. That I can do.”  
I was confident with my ability at the moment and I was willing to face the challenge of the unknown. I believed I had made it clear to him that I meant what I said.  
“Exactly! We can do some simple tests if you want to. No need to worry, you just follow my words and everything would be fine.”  
He pressed two fingers on one side of his temple, looking like a student on the thesis debate, trying to working his way out of it. It took me by surprise that he came at me just like that. He just went over the desk and landed in front of me before he pushed me backwards, arms supporting on both sides of the chair, staring into my eyes.

I was stunned at how fast he had changed but I didn’t want to lose my temper. I remained silent and still, staring back at him.  
“Now, Saito, tell me...imagine that you are in a dream, and I, could either be you partner in the field or a shadow in your dream. Question: am I real or not real?”  
I know the test had begun and now the only way I could think about to see what was real was to pick out any difference, as unidentifiable as it might be, from the reality. My first move was to describe the person in front of me.  
Some words came to my mind, regarding this maniac from the Euro——he was unleashed, free, whimsical, ambitious, stubborn...none of these could help me to see if he was from the reality. I began to doubt that if I was in an somnacin dream. I pictured that there was no one in the whole building and this was a dream owned by me or somebody else and that yet some other people planted it in my head.  
Somehow in a while, I had to admit that I failed. But I chose not to tell. However, for some reason, Eames had seen through me. His face was stoned and unchallengeable. His body was so close that the peacock blue eyes raced up my heart to beat faster, and faster...as if it was a dream.  
“Saito, tell me, how can you know if I was real?”  
It was the second time he called me directly by my name, no sir or mister. I was lured into his words in confusion and even though I wanted to stay alert, I couldn’t.  
Effective ways to know if whatever at present was acceptable was to examine it by touch or something else. I went with touch. I felt the silky texture of his suit when I began to touch his collar as cautiously as possible, like a mother gently forwarded to stroke her baby. That felt real and similar.  
I fathomed that it was made by a Japanese tailor shop, which was well known to me. If I were in the reality, I shall call out the name of the shop. The suit was a custom-made, it was fit and elegant, outlining his muscular body and every weave in the material drew out his lines.  
“Your suit...”  
“Yes?”  
Encouraged by his eyes, I strove to explore my inspection. Though ineffective, I still paid much attention to his suit.  
“Um...it is unexpectedly fit...so it must come from a workshop...by the name of...”  
“You can’t remember it.”  
“No... I can’t.”  
I was about to try another way when I found out I couldn’t recall the name, he suddenly lowered his head. And then I realized it was a kiss. His lips pressed against mine though we were not really kissing, two pairs of lips were just chastely close. I was forced to push him out but thanks to the desk behind his back, he stood back up quickly against it.  
I wiped my lips with my sleeves until it was getting hurt, now it seemed meaningless to keep my outfit intact cause all I wanted to do was to wipe out what had been left on my lips, by the kiss.  
“What are you...”  
“C’mon, Mr. Saito. If by any chance, you think it was a joke...I am going to tell you it was not. I was determined to help you to see if you were in a dream but by the look of it, you wouldn’t cooperate.”  
He went back calling me “Mr. Saito” instead of “Saito” and I found it unnecessary to protest. Eames was upset, lifted from one foot to another, then walked around my office, gesturing the air here and there. It was like a freak show which I found no pleasure in it. What he had done cast a really bad effect on me.  
“I found it nothing from appropriate, what you were trying to do.”  
“No... I think, if you were in a dream, everything you encounter was in fact highly complicated. You can’t take things for granted. I believe you know that already.”  
“But I have not been kissed by a son of a man neither in reality nor in my dreams.”  
“So...”  
“I am considering punching you in the face.”  
“Huh...” he laughed hard on my words, bending his waist,”But it might could’ve been a dream.” He even chocked at it, from the laugh or any reaction to my comments, patting his chest like it had never been patted before.  
“OK, the test is over.”  
I assumed he was playing games, I was angry. I would not let this go that easy without a fight. “You are fired.”  
“Please allow me clarify, Mr. Saito,” he said, “I was not your employee since everything was a favor from a friend whom, I assume, you have a history with. I just follow your instructions to teach you how to create a dream. We must do it step by step and it goes from making sure that if you have the essence of being an inceptor——you must have the ability to find the truth. May I ask: do you remember what you had been doing before I came in?”  
Eames kept telling me things I didn’t want to hear, my head was full of the images of my lips were touched by his. I stood up quickly and suddenly felt the world turned upside down around me. The parallel lines turned to vertical and somehow the peacock blue eyes far way appeared in front of my face. I was lying down on my chair with Eames studying me by my side.  
The golden glow of sunshine cut through his shadow. My eyelids were so heavy that they were about to close at any time. I seemed to wake up from a noon nap as I saw the milk I left on the desk in the morning.  
“Dream.”  
“That’s right.”  
“I... when...”  
“I believed you have left instructions to your assistant that you have an appointment with a professional at 3 this afternoon and the truth was...your assistant is fond of the type of guy like me because she let me in, never raised no doubt.”  
By saying that, he suddenly turned to looked at the closed door in my office as if my assistant was standing outside, knowing everything that was happening. But I was more eager to clarify what I had experienced.  
“You came in alone and I was already asleep.”  
“Seemed like it, perhaps you just happened to fall asleep during the wait. I arrived at your office, did some tricks on your chair and performed the kick at the right moment. You didn’t come back that fast so I had some time for myself to return to reality. It is now...five-forty. You have slept for about thirty minutes.”  
I could see that my chair was now parallel to the floor as though originally the back of the chair had a lurch to the ground. The handle to adjust the chair back was broken. How the hell did he manage to pull this off?  
It became all clear when I saw the medical tape on my wrist and the silver suit case by my feet. He had played the blonde in the field just for fun back then, but now I realized what a cat this blonde really was, judging from what he had done to me in the dream, and reality.  
“You remember what you did, right?”  
“That makes both of us, Saito.”  
I struggled to sit up but getting up from such a long nap makes me dazzled. Eames helped me with a lift, and when I stood up right, I had lost the urge to punch him. I relied on the desk corner for a few minutes.  
“You passed.” Eames said to me with a smile, his brown lashes left a shade of vagueness on the socket and his eyes, pupils glimmering, in a gentle mass of blue, looked into me.

“Now you’ve known how to do the T or F by looking for the minute details and if you were in a dream, you wouldn’t remember the name of the tailor shop. But now you can spit it out freely.”  
Without hesitation, I spelled out the name of the shop. The reason that I had memories about the shop in the dream is that I would go there to place customized orders. They were all connected. Damn it. It was just that easy but I just couldn’t get out of his hands in the dream. Although I had learned the tricks, I still have my doubts.  
“But I now I am wearing a different set of suit from the dream. How did you expect me to guide me that way?”  
“Through this.”  
He enjoyed that I had questions to something he would know, even enjoyed the time we talked to each other. He placed the tips on my desk. I had listed some of the things I would do tonight.  
I was impressed. He knew how to find the clues. But I remained silent for not willing to risk bringing up that kiss because I was still in the mist. I must have missed something, something very important in my conversation with Eames. That left me in a puzzle that I intended to solve, later.  
Eames began to read the tips carefully.”If I have the pleasure,” he smiled, as foxy as it had always been, making me doubt that what he had said about”pleasure” was nothing but a joke or satire.”I will buy a drink tonight and celebrate we succeed in coming back from the field. And we can go check out the tailor shop you mentioned. I really hope that the owner can give me a better-looking set.”  
But what exactly was it that made me confused. I might be still dreaming.


End file.
